Of the airlines I have flown (American, United, Northwest, Continental, and Southwest), the most overrated is clearly Continental. While they were no a bad airline, they were certainly nothing special.

On my first flight, SAN-IAH, I was upgraded to First class, and it was sadly disappointing. While the breakfast was delicious and the service attentive during the meal, the service stopped completely after breakfast dishes were cleared. For the last hour and a half of the flight, the flight attendants came through the cabin exactly once, and that was right before landing to make sure that all carry-ons were stowed. When I'm flying in the main cabin, I have absolutely no problem with walking to the galley to ask for a Coke. In First Class, however, I consider the need to do so totally unacceptable... the service should be attentive enough for the FAs to notice that your glass is empty and offer to refill it promptly. Some have said that such a cessation of service simply caters to business travelers who don't want to be disturbed, but I think this is hogwash. First of all, even when people are working they may want a drink. Secondly, the mark of a truly great airline product is that it is personalized; thus, the flight attendants should observe passengers' activities and customize the service to fit. As such, they woudl be able to offer servce to those who are reading magazines without disturbing those who are conducting business.

My second flight, IAH-IND, was just normal. The seats were comfortable, but nothing to write home about. Despite the fact that the airline's website listed this as a lunch flight, despite the fact that the flight attendant implied that lunch would be served, and despite the fact that American offers a meal on their DFW-IND flight at the same time of day, there was no meal service. The flight is 2 hours and 15 minutes, but there was only one beverage service.

Aside from their "excellent" in-flight service, CO was a joy to deal with over the phone. The ticket I purchased from CO featured NW codeshare flights for the first half of my trip, LAF-DTW-SAN. However, when there was a schedule change, most of the folks at CO were about unhelpful as could be. I spent a total of about 10 hours on the phone with CO trying to get them to fix my itinerary, and, once they did, they made me go to Indianapolis (1.5 hours and $33 away) to have a Continental agent endorse my ticket over to NW (CO doesn't fly to LAF). Upon arrival at the CO counter at IND, the agent said something to the effect of, "Well, this was a waste of your time... this is already a NW ticket. I don't need to do anything to it." I actually spoke to one reservations agent at Continental who didn't know what a codeshare was, and I had to explain the concept to her.

Maybe it's just me, but these don't seem like service attributes of what is supposed to be the premier airline of the United States.

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On a side note, I would say that the most under-rated of these airlines is Northwest, whose service I found to be friendly and comfortable on my LAF-DTW-SAN trip.

Without a dought British Airways. I have flown first class five times and that I will say was the best.
BUT, there coach is no treat. on a flight from O'hare to London, We were supposed to be served dinner at 7:30 pm, we were finally severd at 9:45 pm ( I was starved by then!!!!!!). Drink service went around five times. I really don't think that's enough for a 11 hr fight time, do you?
So in conclusion, I hope that they will do something about it.

Without a dought British Airways. I have flown first class five times and that I will say was the best.
BUT, there coach is no treat. on a flight from O'hare to London, We were supposed to be served dinner at 7:30 pm, we were finally severd at 9:45 pm ( I was starved by then!!!!!!). Drink service went around five times. I really don't think that's enough for a 11 hr fight time, do you?
So in conclusion, I hope that they will do something about it.

I won't say which one of those large ATL-based Aeroflot-liveried airlines I think is THE MOST OVERRATED on planet earth, but I will agree with Purdue Arrow and say that NW, quite unfairly, is very much underrated (as well as generally maligned).

I think it's got to be the Qantas and British Airways combination. What's so great about it? Granted the fares are slightly cheaper than the competition but their stewardesses are racist to Asians. And consideing they even stop in Singapore on their way to Europe and Australia.

What's wrong with Singapore? I think it's way better than the QF/BA combination. At least their stewardesses and stewardes treat me (coach pax) with some respect.

I don't think there is anything that wrong with SIA, but I still beleive that it is overated. I agree with you about the BA / QF combination, some QF flights are absolutely terrible for zoo unless your in biz. I find that the biz flights on Ansett Australia are the best in Asia and I fly there for work quite a lot.

Malaysian is very overated and has awful FA's any time I have had the mispleasure of having to fly code with them from Europe.

Without any hesitation: Singapore Airlines!
They are very mediciore in reality nowadays, plus they have some SERIOUS attitude problems concerning safety. More concrete, CRM is something unknown to a lot of Locals, Maintenance is deferred as long as possible to cut costs, a pure asian hierarchy system, flavoured with "friend politics", locals first and a cutting corner mentality is not what you'd expect from the "best airline in the world".
Oh, and their service in First and Raffles have gone down the slides into the mud.

Continental. Period. Great service? Sometimes. Clean Planes? Sometimes. I personally think that the top 5 airlines are all generic in service. CO claims to be the best, but I have flown them 15 times so far this year and there is NO major difference. Great airline, usually a nice flight, but I can also say the same of AA/UA/DL. And yes, I have flown ALL of these airlines as many times this year. I'm Platinum on AA & DL and CO is OK, but not the "#1 uber alles" they claim to be.

Whats wrong with SINGAPORE ???
They were the best I've flown with !!!
And, Mx5_boy, by the way the Malaysian FAs
were the nicest I've been served by !
The most overrated I think is Delta.
I have not flown with them but what I heard,
their service is really bad.
The most underrated airline by far is Northwest.
As I've red some very bad posts about them,
I've flown them, and must say: they're great !!!

I can't count how many times Northwest has been dragged through the mud in such childish fashions..."Northworst", etc. Of all the airlines I've flown on, including Midwest Express, Singapore, Korean, Virgin, Northwest never fails to impress me. Unlike the other large domestic carriers...United is far overrated, Northwest actually acknowledges that there has been problems with their customer service, AND IS ACTUALLY DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT! Their hubs are being renovated, just check out Detroit's midfield terminal construction. So many people, hell, probably those who say that NW is underrated are probably the ones bashing that carrier, but no other carrier is working harder to improve customer satisfaction!

I have to agree with people regarding NW: When I flew them, there were nothing but helpful, friendly people. I flew LGA-MSP-PDX, and when I arrived at the airport, LGA was socked in and cancelled. They switched me over to EWR for the departing and returning portions, and when I got to EWR and checked in, the agent noticed that I was like 5 hours early for my new flight (not living in NYC, what was I supposed to do?) so he gave me a voucher for a 1-day pass at their World lounge or whatever. Very good airline, and I loved their service.

The most overrated airline, by far, is American: never doing anything innovative... just play follow-the-leader to United. Cramped hubs, attitude-filled FAs... the pits

And Qantas arent racist to asians.......they even have quite a few asian people as f/a's, there cabin crew head quarters is in Japan, along with there co training facility, what makes you think they are racist.

Why wouLd airlines be over-rated in the first pLace?
Those airlines must have had something really good from them that's earned their reputation. Did u think passengers favored airlines because their name sounds totally cool when read out...like Cathay.. Pacific something... Garoooda... and for those with that asian fetish...AsianA...
Or did u think Singapore's popularity came about from her barely 4 million population, country loyal supporters who bought up every magazine on the shelves to take part in each "best airline" poll so that their national flag carrier is all the way up there so is the national pride? In that case why isn't China or India population giants up there somewhere...

Sure you aren't, VA340........You have just had a bad experience, but I dont think that this is a commonplace within any airline, its a myth. Sorry bout the expereience, but my uncle and many others brits are not racist pigs and if I were you I would take a look at how you treat others (british employees) and perhaps you see a connection.....

I came to BA well after the dirty tricks campaign, and having read Bransons 'losing my virginity' I was pretty disgusted by the actions the BA took. (to all, this is a good book to read just for the section on how airline competiton can get out of hand).

Those are my views on the dirty tricks campaign - competion that got out of hand at the hands of some power hungry board members, some of which are still around, some who aren't, and good ridance. I for one hope that BA and Virgin can have a more better relationship in the future. A view share by the new BA boss who arranged to meet Branson this week.

I'm also sorry that you had a bad experience on BA. But as someone else said, we have all had bad experiences on one airline or another. There is ABSOLUTELY no room in todays society for racism, but just because you have one bad experinece you quite rightly decide not to fly with BA again, so you miss out on seeing that not everyone in BA is the same. Believe it or not, I have had bad experiences on BA as well. A gate attendant was very rude to some passengers on a early moning Rome flight I took, and I felt like saying something, as a fellow employee.

Every airline has its bad egggs, I am sorry you came across some of BAs, but please, please dont accuse me of having the thread removed, when you have absolutely nothing to back up you accusations. Don't accuse me of removing yours and others freedom of speech, just becasue you think that as a BA employee I must be as bad as the other ones that you have come accross.

Oh yes and can we have some facts to back up your calim that BA was screening minorities. If the EU knew about this highly illegal practice they would shut BA down, so some facts please, not idle flaming.

Out of the airlines that I've flown, I would say that's Singapore Airlines. It is really a great way to 'fly', but after the flight I got tonnes ofthings to follow such that my Kris Flyer account. The check-in staff told me they'd entered the mileage for me and they found the name was wrong and gave me a letter to sign in order to change my name. However, the fact is, they didn't do so and I had to write letter to ask them to change. I've also sent letter of complaint but there's no reply. However when I also send letter of complaint to Cathay Pacific, they replied immediately with a very formal letter. See? THat's the differentce between CX and SQ. Although CX's inflight entertainment is not as good as SQ, but for taking CX, I won't have so much things to follow afterwards!

Singapore Airlines have a reputation for great service but in my many flights with them I have found their flight attendents to be surly and sullen to a woman (or man). Plus their attitude to safety is something that has only fully been revealed to me in the last few years and it is a miracle that their safety record isn't the same as Korean Air. Someone else on this thread mentioned their lack of CRM in the cockpit, and their willingness to defer important maintenence items. I know this sounds morbid and all, but they will have a disastrous accident soon. Sorry, but this is true and anyone who knows what goes on behind the scenes at SIA would agree with me. Did you know that just last month 30 expat pilots defected to Korean Air?? That speaks volumes.